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Media Design Lab & Video Production: Creating Accessible Materials

Introduction

Use the information on this page to help make your instructional materials accessible to persons with disabilities as well as giving all of your students multiple modes of accessing content and course material. Once you have made your course accessible, use the following link to check its compliance online.

W3C Web Accessibility Evaluator

Moodle Accessibility Tips

Item
Accessibility Steps
More Information
Design Elements
  • Include an accommodation statement in your syllabus
  
 
  • Add a link or contact information to the Disability Services Office
 
  • Use concise, meaningful text when labeling resources and activities
  • Helps persons with vision or learning disabilities to navigate Moodle
 
  • When possible, open linked items in the same window
  • Opening a linked item in a new window can be confusing for persons using screen readers
 
  • Avoid identifying objects by color (e.g. "all assignments in red are optional")
  • Color blind individuals cannot distinguish between colors on the screen
 
  • Make sure printable materials are still usable in black and white print
  • Some people prefer to work from printed documents
 
  • Avoid course materials that display blinking or flashing computer graphics
  • This can cause seizures or migraines in some individuals
Quizzes
  • Check your quizzes with screen reader technology
 
  • Provide an alternate version of the exam, if necessary
  
 
  • Provide extended time to those students requiring this accommodation
  • Use groupings to assign students to an extended time test
Discussion Forums
  • Use explicit discussion forum topics (e.g. "Question about Assignment #2" vs. "Question")
  
 
  • Require participants to create a new topic when appropriate, instead of continually replying to a single post
  • It can be difficult for people using screen readers to find information in nested replies

Online Documents

Item
Accessibility Steps
More Information
Word
  • Use sans serif fonts such as Ariel or Helvetica and make sure they are of sufficient size
  • Makes the document easier to read for someone with low vision
 
  • Avoid using WordArt
  • WordArt prior to Word 2010 is rendered as an image and cannot be read by screen readers
 
  • Create clear, consistent headings throughout the document
  • Can use Word's Styles toolbar to create consistent headings
 
  • Use Word's columns, numbered and bulleted lists, and tables instead of attempting to create these items using spaces or tabs
  • The document is more screen reader compatible
 
  • When pasting text from a Word document into a Moodle course, use the Clean Word HTML button on the text editor tool bar
  • Avoids the insertion of additional Microsoft Word coding
  • Using the Clean Word HTML button
 
  • Avoid posting Word documents in Moodle that have been saved as web pages
  • Saving Word documents as a web pages adds additional coding that makes the page slower to load and more difficult for screen readers to read
PDFs
  • Check PDF documents for screen reader compatibility
  • Some PDF documents are rendered as an image and will not be readable by screen readers
 
  • Use an OCR (Optical Character Reader) to convert the PDF document to text, if necessary
 
  • Provide the information in an alternative format
  • Person's with reading difficulties may need to manipulate items on the page such as font size, character spacing, font and background color, etc.
PowerPoint
  • Use alt tags or provide descriptions for images, photos, charts, and tables
  • Adding alt tags
 
  • Use strong color contrast between font and slide background
  
 
  • If you have embedded narration, include a transcript